Monday, October 8, 2007

Segregation

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Rex_theatre.jpg

This picture represents how America was after the emancipation of slavery occurred. I chose to use this piece because I find how they were able to uphold the segregation between the different races for a long period of time to be very interesting. Even if the African Americans were now considered free people, they were still looked down upon by the white Americans, and were still treated as inferiors to them. Almost everything from theatres to school, to even restaurants were segregated as to where people of what race could sit, if the African Americans were even allowed to enter the area at all. Here this picture shows of a theatre for colored people. This theatre is most likely in a worse condition than the white people’s movie theatre, and it is probably less taken care of as well.

The topic of segregation was also brought up during some of the readings and movies that we did in class. Again, in the movie Ethnic Notions, which mainly revolved around African Americans and how they were represented within America, it shows how they are supposedly savage beasts, and that they were not allowed to go to any place where white people were the only “kind” of people accepted in a particular area. Specifically, an example from the movie consisted of an African American actor, who performs in black face tried to go into a place where whites were accepted, but the only way he could get in was to have someone escort him inside. So he waited outside the doors until someone would be kind enough to be his escort. Throughout the time he was outside he was expected by the whites to open the door for people, and that was it. This event, along with the picture, shows that the African Americans were still looked down upon, and were supposedly expected to be of service to the whites in order to gain money during this time period.

I believe that the racial segregation that happened during this time period was absurd. Though then it probably seemed like a very fair thing to do, given how they stereotype the African Americans to be savage beasts, and not actual human beings. I also found that it was quite bad on the white Americans part that instead of just sharing the same building for a movie theater, they went and built another theater specifically for African Americans. In hindsight, the city ended up losing more money to construct a second theatre just for the African Americans, along with losing extra space they could have used for something else. Overall, segregation and having specific buildings only allow certain races is probably the worst idea that could have ever happened in the Americas. Also, it is quite apparent that the African Americans half of the buildings were considerably less cared for by the city, and does not seem as nice as the utilities the white Americans were allowed to use. The segregation that occurred in America is probably one of the worst events that happened within the country.